Dog
Not away, but after
or contrary,
the reversal indicative
and untoward: scratching,
she spirals to the perfect
spot between us, touching both,
then sighs. In comfort, in ecstasy,
in contentment, who can say?
But we sigh in response.
“Dog” first appeared on the blog in October 2014. The photo is of Apollonia, aka Apple.
“To the Lovely Green Beetles Who Carried My Notes into the Afternoon” first appeared in riverSedge Volume 29, Issue 1, released in October 2016. It is also included in my chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, available for pre-publication order through tomorrow, August 11, from Finishing Line Press.
Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
This first appeared on the blog in October 2014.
Two Cranes on a Snowy Pine (after Hokusai)
Who knows where bird
begins and tree
ends,
which branch shifts
snow, which bears
eternity. This, too, will share
joy,
elusive green
and breath,
with no thought
of flight
and night’s
fall.
* * *
“Two Cranes on a Snowy Pine” is included in my forthcoming chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, which is available for pre-publication order until August 11.
The poem first appeared in Panoply in summer, 2016, and was subsequently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Many thanks to editors Ryn Holmes, Jeff Santosuosso and Andrea Walker for this honor, my first such nomination.
See the woodblock print that sparked this poem: Hokusai
Firewood
For two years the oak
loomed, leafless.
We had aged
together, but somehow
I survived the drought
and ice storms, the
regret and wilt,
the explosions within,
and it did not.
I do not know
the rituals of trees,
how they mourn
a passing, or if
the sighs I hear
betray only my own
frailties, but even
as I fuel the saw and
tighten the chain,
I look carefully
for new growth.
“Firewood” is included in my forthcoming chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, available for pre-publication order (shipping in October) at Finishing Line Press.
My poem, “Overlooked” has been published in the inaugural issue of The Mantle. Many thanks to editor James Croal Jackson for taking this piece.
Staircase at Fifteen
Ascending, her centrifugal
influence captures me
and I follow,
breathless,
witless, wordless,
despite all longing
and shared
discretions, in spite
of the thundering
pulse
and the incessant
demand to act
or run.
She pauses, looks
down, sees
nothing.
Suddenly freed,
spinning off
and slowing down,
shrinking,
far below, on equal
footing but so
apart,
never to meet
in truth, unable
to define direction or
motive, I remain
fixed as she moves
higher, far away, close
but up,
always up.
From Every Moment a Second
We’ve entered the final week of the prepublication sales period for my new chapbook, From Every Moment a Second. If you intended to order during this period, but haven’t yet (the dog ate your homework, you had to wash your hair, poetry? you’re kidding, right?), time’s running out. Order here.
Many thanks to the members of this blog community for supporting my writing. I sit alone in my shack to write, but you are there with me, just a keyboard away. I am truly grateful for your wisdom, humor and willingness to help me traverse the strange and wonderful worlds of poetry and publication.
Laocoön
This figure of complexity
persuades a lingering
glance, the two-fold
inclination entwined,
horror expressed
in tandem, the sons’
limbs compressed
as the father struggles,
realizing true
sacrifice, the inward
grasp of storm and
wrath and serpent,
his face
echoing those yet
to come, breached
walls, a city in
flames, the cries
of warnings unheeded.
Laocoön, through Virgil’s Aeneid, is the source of the phrase “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” The poem, which first appeared in The Blue Hour Magazine, was inspired by the sculpture “Laocoön and His Sons,” which resides at the Vatican. You might find Wikipedia’s entry of interest. Originally posted on the blog in February 2016.
